Why You are Here

Dear Madeleine,

Over the weekend, you were working intently on science homework,  related to the formation of stars.  At one point, you looked up from your work and said, “This makes me feel small and wonder why I am here.”  At the time, I think my response to you was just one of agreement, but now that I’ve had some time to consider the question and reflect upon it, I’d like to change my answer.

I have a similar reaction of wonder and a sense of my own insignificance, as I gaze up at the stars, or watch our sun set beyond the immense ocean, or hike through some place as majestic as the Grand Canyon.  I’ve also been acutely aware of man’s irrelevance while walking among the giant sequoias or searching for the last glimmers of alpenglow on snowy peaks.  As I’ve aged, I find that I seek out this atmosphere, and I’ve gained a sensation of great peace and contentment from it.  Somehow, the realization that my own trials and triumphs, while enormous on my scale, are nothing in the face of geologic or astronomical time, provides me with a perspective that gives me space to breathe.    

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder and enchantment at the breadth and depth of time and space.  We humans are a mere blip in the grand scheme of the universe, though we fancy ourselves greatly important.  This is not to say that what you do with your time here is without value.  On the contrary, your life’s work is of significance that I cannot begin to explain.  It is critical that you do your best and strive all your life to do good.

As you read about the birth of stars in their nursery nebulae, I could see you recalling chilly evenings when you peered through your dad’s telescope at the Great Nebula of Orion.  The dust and gasses in that cloud wait, biding their time as you watched from light years’ distance, for enough critical mass to materialize into a new star.  And despite that great distance, those potential stars had influence on you, though today you might not understand their impact.

The shortest answer I can give you to your question Why am I here? is that you are here to love and to be loved.

But that is probably not an adequate answer to express the truth as I know it. 

You are here to help me understand love.  Before your arrival, I believed that love had capacity.  Now I understand that it does not.  Love is limitless; it is bound only by fear, even though love is stronger than fear.  I know now that love is not a pouring in, but a flowing out, ever expanding, like the red giant stars you told me about.

You are here, not only to learn and wonder about the mysteries of the universe, but also to teach us all, because you, too, are one of its marvels.  You are here because the sun and the moon conspired to create a bright, snow-dusted spring day lovely enough for your arrival. 

You are here because I am here, your father is here, and your grandparents are here.  Your ancestors - all of them - collaborated on a centuries-long project, the current iteration of which is you.

You are here to find something, although you don’t yet know what form this treasure will take, what questions of yours it will answer, or what paths it will lead you to explore.

You are here to be kinder than you need to be, to ask questions that are difficult to answer, to create something with the tools that you will find.  You are here to take care of others, to make soft, cozy dens that will shelter us from the harsher elements of life.  You are here to help others be less afraid.

You are here because it was time.  And watching you, I think of what felt like an eternity as I waited for the critical mass required for you to materialize.  The universe needed you and had prepared this space and time for you to bloom.

With much love,

Momma

Intrinsically Yours

I recently had a conversation with a mother who is concerned about her daughter’s experiences at school with mean girls. You know, mean girls: the scourge of the middle grades and beyond. Perhaps from a need to build themselves up, these mean girls seek to tear others down, hoping to place themselves upon a pedestal made from the broken backs of others. They’re a wily bunch, traveling in packs like wild dogs and just as cruel and exacting in their ferocity.

As the mother of two girls, I’m terrified of them. Let me clarify that. I am not personally afraid of them. I know that I can take them on, all swagger and rage in my momma bear persona if need be. But I won’t do that, because taking on the mean girls is no longer my fight, thankfully. I know all too well the damage they can inflict upon a girl’s developing psyche, i.e., my girls’ psyches. Like most women my age, I think back to Little House on the Prairie and that quintessential mean girl: Nellie Olsen. But Nellie is likely tame compared to the mean girls of today.

What scares me is that like so many other battles kids have to face, they generally face this one alone. Their own shaky self-worth is pitted against a small clique wielding its power far beyond the playground. Yet, as cruel as they can seem to their peers, they are also masters of duplicity, who shape-shift into sweetness and light when necessary or advantageous.

And so, how do we, as a society, train our girls to combat this enemy? This enemy, who is as much us as we are them?

I think the answer lies in teaching our girls to listen to and to value their intrinsic worth. So often, it seems that we praise our children for extrinsic manifestations: grades, awards, medals, and other tangible proof that they have merit by society’s standards. But what about teaching them to calibrate their own personal meters of self-worth? To encourage them to pursue activities that allow them to feel good about themselves, regardless of the the points earned, the time on the clock, or the evidence of whatever our flavor-of-the-month society deems valuable?

It occurs to me that many of the pursuits that interest me as an adult fall into this category of intrinsically worthy. I run, not because I will win any races, but because I like how three miles feels: like an accomplishment, even at my turtle pace. I do yoga because it clears the chatter in my mind, including those mean girl demons that still, somehow, sometimes, reside within. I spend time outdoors because nature heals and restores my spirit. And I write because it’s one creative pursuit that makes me feel exceptional, even if I choose not to share it with others. And I think a lot of women get the same positive energies from a wide variety of activities that allow them to be creative and active by striving towards personal goals that are both public and private.

In my youth, I tried some sports, but I was without much natural grace, and was therefore pretty mediocre. Plus, that domain seemed to belong to my siblings and not to me. I tried music, which I enjoyed, but which was more work for me than I was willing to do. I could never quite make it to the elusive First Chair. I don’t think I realized at the time that I could play just for my own enjoyment. It took me a long time to find niches that felt right for me. The more that we can find ways to encourage our daughters to engage in activities that don’t require judgment and winner / loser brackets – those extrinsically valued rewards that our culture esteems so highly – the stronger these girls will become. The more ready they will be to face those mean girls – those who lurk on the playgrounds as well as within – and to perhaps encourage them to show their softer side. Not everything need be a competition with a single alpha female triumphing over the rest.

But I have to ask myself: How did I get to this point? How did I become comfortable in my own skin? It was certainly a long journey for me. I know that it isn’t the mere passage of time that guided me to my own personal satisfaction with myself. But I can’t really pinpoint what occurred or when. Is it the wisdom imparted by experiences I’ve had that make my life at forty-three years so much more bearable than it was at thirteen? Am I just better skilled at seeking out those who are like-minded and at resisting the vortex of those mean girls who, yes, I still encounter among my colleagues? And how do we adults help create a new social value, where competition is replaced by community?

I don’t know the answers to these questions any more than my daughters would if I asked them. And just as there are aspects of parenting that I do without much thought, there are others that I do very deliberately, like limiting my daughters’ exposure to media that promotes images of women that are not only unrealistic but utterly unattainable without a troupe of professional Photoshop artists.

There is a beauty that comes from within, from a sense of poise and confidence that is innate at our beginnings and which it is possible to regain from resilience and the conviction that, yes, you are worthy. Intrinsically and beautifully worthy. And it is that worth that we need to help our daughters reclaim, and not reclaim for them, for that defeats the purpose altogether. It should be our wish that each girl blaze her own unique path, and along the way, seek out those glimmers that lead to her own personal, intrinsic happiness.

A Full Dozen

Earlier this month in Death Valley, as on many of our outdoor outings, Dan and Madeleine were in one tent and Arden and I shared the other. They’re our small backpacking tents, so there’s not much room inside. It’s actually kind of nice to share one with a small-sized human, as that leaves a little more space to store clothes and flashlights and other items we want to keep near.

On the other hand, though, Arden is still a somewhat wild sleeper, flinging herself here and there while in a deep slumber, so I never know if I’ll wake up with her curled about my head, like a cat, or with her legs flung over me, or with her teeth chattering because she’s wiggled out of her sleeping bag. The morning we traveled to Racetrack Playa, though, I woke up to what seemed like an empty tent. I opened my eyes and saw no Arden, no sleeping bag, no pillow. It wasn’t until I sat up, wondering where she’d disappeared to, that I saw her, scrunched into a tiny ball at the very foot of the tent, still inside her sleeping bag.

And so, on our last night, we somehow convinced the two girls to take a tent together, figuring they would enjoy one another’s shenanigans. Plus, we both wanted a more predictable sleeping partner. Dan and I sat outside, enjoying a vision of the Milky Way that only the isolation of Death Valley could provide. As the last light from our Lupo candle burned itself out, we listened to Madeleine reading Superfudge to Arden in their tent. They giggled and acted like the best friend sisters that they’ve grown into being. Now I feel like I really know what my mom meant when she would say that she loved observing us, to see what we’d become.

It’s hard, too, not to attach myself too tightly to their dreams. I learned that lesson (or so I think) early on, when Madeleine commented – at the age of five – that she’d like to play the violin. Immediately caught up in the romantic notion of a small child playing music, we signed her up for lessons, listened religiously to the songs she’d learn to play by ear, and became a Suzuki family, with me learning the same tunes on my own violin. And we ignored the early signs that maybe she just wasn’t that into the violin. And after about a year and a half, she made the decision to retire. At that young age, she might have said that she’d like to travel to the moon just as easily as she’d mentioned the violin.

It was tough on me, because I knew I’d pushed her towards it. I was the one practicing alongside her, encouraging and cajoling her, demanding and correcting her. And just when I was starting to feel like I could play something and have it sound decent, she pulled the plug. And I had to respect her decision. I’m not a Tiger Mom, after all. But this year, as she considered her options for electives in middle school, she elected to try violin again, and she’s been very diligent about practicing. It’s really nice to have music in the house.

Today, Madeleine turns twelve, or as my grandmother would have put it, “a full dozen.” Yes, all those clichés are true. Time does fly, especially once you become parents (except maybe for that witching hour between about 4:00 and dinnertime when everyone is tired and cranky and hungry).

As if I needed more proof that my introverted, shy Madeleine is growing into her own, she came home early last week and announced that there would be a talent show at school. I asked if she would be trying out and she said she didn’t think so, but that one of her friends was going to audition. And then, on the morning of the audition, she mentioned it again, saying that maybe, just maybe, she would try out. I was skeptical, but we made arrangements for her to call if she decided to audition, because she’d need a ride home.

She didn’t call. And she wasn’t home when I got home. I called her and texted. No response. And just as I was starting to get really angry that she hadn’t followed our plan, she called. And she was positively elated. She’d auditioned. And she was ready to be picked up. I could barely get her to hang up so that I could drive to school, she was so excited. I knew that I had to just let go of that anger, that this was a moment far too important to keep calling-mom protocol.

And I realized how far she’s come, how grown up she is. She made this decision on her own, had the guts to follow through, and had the encouragement of positive friends: an empowered, courageous daughter, surrounded by constructive young women. To be independent and capable, to have friends who help her to be her best: a perfect example, right there, my vision for both of my daughters, coming to fruition.

The next morning she found out that she made the cut and will perform in the talent show. And like any mother, I asked when it would be. These kinds of events need to be put on the calendar. And like any middle schooler, she has absolutely no idea.

Happy Full Dozen Birthday, Madeleine!

Skywriting

Clasping my mother’s hand, I
walk toward kindergarten’s
first day. The promise of my
education extending
in all directions, no paths
yet chosen except for this
sidewalk connecting home and

school. It is warm, late summer
in the desert, and there are
gaps in this early memory:
where are my siblings? perhaps
my older brothers are already
at school. My younger sister,
though? Where is she? Does she walk

alongside us? Is my mother
pushing a stroller? It is
my memory, I suppose,
and maybe that’s why these ever-
present siblings aren’t present
here. In my mind, in my story,
it is a quiet morning,

my mother and me, a rare
flash of alone-together.
I look up into that blue
sky, its immensity as huge
as my potential. An air-
plane, silent and distant, writes
a message in the sky. And

this I recall distinctly:
So sure of what I would learn
that first day at school, I didn’t
ask my mother to read me
the skywriting. Perhaps this
was the beginning of
conscious growing up and

growing away, the separ-
ation of self from parent?
In my double naiveté,
I was certain of two things:
I would be able to read
at the end of the school day
(as if that were a skill to

master in a single afternoon),
and that the message would
remain, waiting for my
ability to catch up.
Airplanes don’t write in the sky
anymore and while the educated
adult I am today knows
that the message was likely

an advertisement, still
I marvel at the power
of words, especially those
dangling before us, yet
hidden in plain sight, as
incongruous as letters
made of vapor, ethereal as clouds.

[ this moment ]

[ this moment ] - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. (Homage to Soule Mama)

Playing the Small Parts

Last week, I read a painful update on the Tucson shootings about the mother of Christina-Taylor Green, the girl who was born on 9/11/01 and who was killed in Tucson this past January when Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot. I didn’t watch the memorial service in Tucson for Christina-Taylor and the others, but I did read this excerpt from our president’s speech there: “We are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this Earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame – but rather, how well we have loved, and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better.”

I look at my own girls, whose birthdates straddle Christina-Taylor’s, and I am overwhelmed by her family’s loss. And then I remember all the families of those killed on 9/11. And the families of those Americans killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since then. I think of the families of Afghans and Iraqis killed and I feel for them and can’t help but try to understand the depth of their losses, too. Taliban, al Qaeda, or not, their families mourn them just as deeply as we mourn our own. And although bin Laden is dead, I still will not celebrate.

I recall feeling great hope after 9/11’s initial shock and devastation cleared. I remember thinking that maybe this event would be the catalyst that would give our nation the focus and unity required to move beyond status quo, that would take us to a new height – and maybe even to a level of compassion that can only be achieved after devastating loss. I can see that the hope I felt was naïve at best, and now it seems as foolish as a child’s dream of playing in the NBA.

I spent much of the summer frustrated about our nation’s stagnation in debt, and Congress’s short-sighted and self-congratulatory “solutions,” which could be likened to pissing into the wind and being too stupid to realize that it’s their own piss splattering on their faces – as well as on ours and the future generations’.

And then, the media frenzy that will attempt to honor the tenth anniversary of 9/11 began to rear its head, in many forms: some well-written and poignant, others sensationalized and sappy. Honoring the dead is a necessary rite. Supporting the survivors and bearing witness to the tragedy are essential. But I don’t need to see the towers fall again and again and again to do those things.

And just as I was beginning (again) to feel a bit disappointed in my perception of the State of the World, I read this and a few days later, this. And then a friend posted this on facebook. And what, with all that, 9/11, and Christina-Taylor, my boots were getting heavy, and I was forced take a long look at my own mortality and attempt to make some peace with it. Because really, my mortality and I, we are walking this path toward one another, every second getting closer. And there’s no way of denying that.

Last fall I attended two memorial services, one for my dear aunt, and another for a woman I’d met only once – the mother of one of my students. I was struck by the similar tones at each service: how these two women, above all else, were mothers and wives. Everything else that defined them was secondary. But their relationships with the people who needed them the most were the focus of their love and their lives. And those people knew it. They felt it. And all those whose lives they touched were better for it.

And just because these two women were mothers and wives above all else does not mean that they fit a stereotype. They were dynamic, educated, interesting people who made an effort to convey their love. It has nothing to do with feminism or the woman’s role in the family or society. They were extraordinary women. They were extraordinary people. One of the gravest mistakes of the women’s movement has been to underestimate the capacity of women to create love, and to miscalculate the value of the power of that love.

And so tonight, even though I had papers to grade and a house that’s been needing attention, a garden that’s needed tending and a sink full of dirty dishes, my daughters and I enjoyed an afternoon at their favorite place, the library, and dinner out.

I’ve realized a few things. There will always be work that can be taken home. There will always be more work to do. There will always be some place in the house that needs a thorough cleaning. The garden can often times thrive on neglect. And while those dishes never seem to wash themselves, I can still wish for the dish fairies to come and bless my sink.

But I’ll never, ever, get to go to traipse through the public library searching for (even) more horse books, or enjoy another pizza downtown at Bill’s with my daughters on September 1, 2011. And, yes, we somehow did find a whole new pile of books to enjoy. And of course, the pizza was damn good. But the company was even better.

Navigating the Middle

In the car on the way to my daughter’s first day of middle school, Madeleine wants to review again what she’s going to do this morning to kill time until her classes begin. She’s not as fidgety as I’d feared, and she speaks in a clear voice, chanting her locker combination once more. The drop-off area is actually in the same parking lot as her former elementary school, and I’m relieved at how normal it feels to be pulling into this driveway, the same place she’s been dropped off for six years already now.

As I pull the car to a stop at the curb, she is blinking a little too quickly, trying to distribute nervous tears before they gather and spill. She manages to pull herself together and we hug. And it is only when she pulls away that while I know in my gut that she is ready, I suddenly realize that I am not. I don’t want to leave her here. I don’t want to watch her walk up that pathway alone. Panic flutters about within, my own tears threaten to spill, and I am grateful for my dark sunglasses. Can she see that I am struggling to hold it together? Can she see that my chin wants to tremble? Does she notice that I am shaking as I help her into the straps of her new backpack? More than anything, I don’t want her to notice what’s going on with me. This brand of anxiety is highly contagious.

She manages a nervous smile and signs “I love you.” I return the gesture, but when the door slams shut and she turns away, I jump and feel myself shatter inside. Gasping for breath, I watch her walk away, alone, until she disappears beyond the curve, obscured by boulders and scrub oak that surround her new school.

I want to leap out of the car and keep her company until that first bell rings. I want to watch again as she tries to open her locker. I want to make sure she can navigate the crowds and find her way. But I can’t. I have students of my own, several miles away, who need me to be there for them, and I cannot stay. I hear a voice that sounds like my own saying, “You’re letting go of the bike. It will be ok.” And I put the car in drive and pull away from the curb.

Tears stream down my face, and I try not to sob. Somehow this is even more difficult than leaving her that first day of kindergarten. And as I wait for the stoplight to change I remember why. I’ve taught middle school. I know what a critical time this is for her. I see the faces of a few former students, those I couldn’t quite help navigate these deep waters, and I wonder where they are today: Prison? Stuck in a cycle of poverty? Dead? Or did they somehow exceed society’s expectations? And above all: are they happy? In those tough-but-sweet faces, I saw too much freedom and not enough support. No boundaries followed swiftly by arbitrary ones. It was easy to notice what I perceived as failures of parenting, back when I wasn’t a parent. It was easy to prescribe the cure-all for what ailed these kids, these kids that I was capable of loving only to an extent.

Middle school is a crossroads for all kids. Which paths will they seek out? Will they follow, or will they lead? So much is determined in these short, volatile middle years. Now that I have my own middle schooler, I realize (again) how much parenting is like feeling your way in the dark. Sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing. I go by my gut. I ask others. I read and research. I monitor and adjust. And I hope that I make more good decisions than not. I want her to make her own path, so that when hers intersects with other paths, that she’ll make wise choices. I want to make sure she has enough breadcrumbs to find her way back, too, though.

Somehow I make it to my school, and I pour myself into my teaching, manic energy fueling me through class after class. And when I see Madeleine – finally – at the end of the day, the light from her smile melds this mother back together, and I exhale as the details of her day bubble up with exaggerated gestures and laughter.

Letting Go of the Bike

When we initially inquired about renting our vacation apartment in Montréal, we were told that bikes were available. There is a great bike path along the canal just a quarter-mile or so from here, so we really wanted to spend some of our time seeing the city in this way. When we spent time regularly in San Diego, one of our collective favorite memories is riding our bikes around Mission Bay, stopping at the playgrounds along the way.

We were also aware that a bike in Arden’s in-between-a-child’s-and-an-adult’s-size would be hard to come by. And so we weren’t surprised when the best choice for her was really a bit too big. Dan adjusted it as best he could for her, and she spent some time this morning, in fits and starts, pedaling – somewhat half-heartedly – up and down our street. Yes, it’s a city street, but it’s only about 100m long, is one-way, and has very little traffic at all. But somehow, riding new terrain on an unfamiliar, almost-too-big bike when you’re mere weeks from being eight-years-old, can mentally feel akin to learning to ride without training wheels for the first time. After a couple spills, she wanted to call it quits.

We reminded her that most of bike riding, maybe even as much as 90%, is just simply believing that you actually can ride. She didn't want to hear it. We put the bikes away and walked to the park a block away where the kids got soaked, running and splashing in the fountains there, built specifically with kids and hot summer days like this in mind.

A pair of brothers was riding their bikes on the trail through the park, and I convinced Arden to try the new bike there while Dan and Madeleine rode down to the canal. After I made her say a ridiculous, eye-rolling, self-affirming mantra, she got back on the bike. I helped her get going a few times, but then, once those wheels got rolling, it was all her, pedaling away. And then she’d circle around and pedal back, and away again, and back. Before today, all of my teaching-a-child-how-to-ride ideas were just that: ideas. Dan’s been the one to actually handle this department of parenting. I could talk about it, sure, but it was all theoretical.

A child riding off on a bicycle really is the ultimate metaphor for parenting, as Sloan Wilson so aptly notes:

The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard.

As much as any other endeavor my child will embark upon, first and foremost, she will have to believe that she can do it. And instilling that belief, by far, is the most important task a parent has. Today, I had history on my side, as she’s ridden bikes before and knows she can do it. All I had to do was remind her of her ability.

I wonder, though, how much more difficult will my task of encouragement become when her task is something she’s never, ever, done? Or something I’m feeling a little shaky about her doing?

Running alongside and whispering encouragement, though, are actually pretty easy to execute. It’s that last act of teaching a child to ride. When I realized that my hand grasping the back of the seat was no longer what she needed, and in fact, had become an awkward hindrance. When I realized that by holding on, I might actually cause her to fall. Eventually, I had to let go. Let go, and let her ride off, alone, trying to convince myself that she is ready, she is prepared! for any obstacle in her path.

D-Day + 55 years (Normandy: June 6, 1999)

We approach the beaches from the south
in what was Nazi-occupied territory,
a lumbering tour bus filled with teenagers,
most on their first European tour.
As we draw closer, each successive village bears
more American flags in the windows that line the streets,
some with messages of gratitude like
merci and thanks you, America.
I chaperone these newly-graduated, newly-minted adults,
which mostly means that I tell them they need
to go to bed or what time they need to wake up and be ready to roll
or I threaten that if they stay out too late or break the rules
by drinking in a French bar, I might have to call
their parents, who await their return with anxious hands and hearts.

That was before we stopped near the beaches
nicknamed Juno and Omaha in American lore,
near the sprawling cemeteries on the bluffs,
the cold wind off the Channel whipping our skin,
making our eyes tear up,
buffeting our jackets as we peered out to the north
from the sidewalk café where we sipped rich chocolat chaud.

That was before an ancient man in an old Canadian military uniform
pointed at the choppy sea and the scuttling clouds and said to us,
or to no one in particular, that day was just like this, cold and grey.
And we shivered, grateful to him and the others
– for their courage, yes,
but also because we weren’t in that water,
loaded with gear and guns,
dodging German bullets and mortars, and
trying (not) to envision those
aspects of war that old soldiers never mention.

That was before an old American man boarded our bus to share
his testimony: I was here, he said, voice shaking.
I was here, and I saw things no one should ever see.
I don’t know, he started, and stopped, looking at each of us,
why I lived and why my buddies didn’t. He paused again,
his intense eyes becoming shiny,
then, they were good men.
He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his nose
and the bus was brimming
with our soft weeping and sorrow, and
we tried to reconcile the textbook image of hero with this
very real man who stood before us, gripping the back of the bus seat
to steady himself: I was here, he said again, and now he looked at
the boys on the bus, and I was your age.

He turned, and his middle-aged son, camera strapped to chest,
appeared to help his father down the steps
as we called out inadequate thank yous.
Somehow, I think he meant to tell us other things,
what it was like that day and what he did in the war -
until he saw these boys on the bus.
Even fifty-five years can’t bury some things.

That was before I was a mother, before I could plumb
the dark depths of love and fear those boys’ mothers
must have reckoned from the other side of the Atlantic,
without benefit of a phone call from a chaperone,
on their sons’ first European tour.

Endurance

When I first read Anne Frank: the Diary of a Young Girl, I was just a little older than my oldest daughter is now. For me, like it is for most people, the book was devastating and inspiring, all at the same time. I came back to it again and again throughout my pre-high school years, looking for hope and courage in Anne’s words. I moved on to Elie Wiesel’s Night, and other Holocaust books – some biographical, others fiction – and I still read every single one I can get my hands on.

Then, it was a search for understanding, a desire to find courage and resilience in the terrible, unjust lives of people who were simply trying literally to endure. Now, I think I read more out of a sense of responsibility, a need to bear witness to these events which seem so long ago. I have had the honor of hearing many Holocaust survivors speak, and each time I am reminded that these were real people. They were just like you and me, but were targeted and victimized and murdered, for the simple reason that they were somehow different. Except they weren’t. Different, that is. They were people.

And so, when I learned that a Holocaust survivor, Thomas “Toivi” Blatt would be speaking in Prescott in honor of Yom HaShoah, or Days of Remembrance, I wanted my eleven-year-old daughter to join me.

When we arrived at the theater, I was surprised – and pleased – to see such a large crowd assembled, and then I worried that there wouldn’t be any seats for us at this ticketless event. We somehow made it up through the line, and were escorted to a pair of seats, and the ceremony began a few moments later.

Prayers were said, a short film was shown, and then candles were lit by local educators and librarians to honor victims of the Holocaust. Survivors in the audience were recognized: there were more than a half dozen. And then Mr. Blatt entered the auditorium. Even at 84-years-old and walking with a cane, Mr. Blatt looked like he could take on most members of the audience and walk away unscathed. The details of his ordeal during the war are in his book, From the Ashes of Sobibor, which I haven’t yet read, but his story was a completely different kind of Holocaust story from any that I have known.

I’ve heard Holocaust survivors speak at schools, both when I was a student and since I’ve been a teacher. Last year I heard the story of a man who hid in the woods in Belarus for several years during his early childhood, among the armed partisans depicted in the film Defiance. There was the harrowing account I heard in Tucson of a woman who detailed what she lost. The most difficult loss, she said, even more difficult than losing her entire family, was losing her dignity. How, she still wondered, do you reclaim that? Her story was emotional and raw, tearful and angry.

But Mr. Blatt’s story is none of those things. His story is one of cunning and courage, of risk and audacity. The creative ways his family survived – up to a point – and the lengths they went to in their attempts to save their son were surprising, including purchasing documents to permit him to travel to Hungary in his early teens, where, they hoped, he would be safe. All was going well on the train until he was deemed suspicious, and while his papers checked out fine, the Gestapo guard somehow knew that young Mr. Blatt was a Jew. I wish I could relay the humorous exchange between Mr. Blatt and this Nazi who insisted on personally checking if Mr. Blatt was circumcised, but I doubt I could it justice without a Yiddish accent. Mr. Blatt is utterly human, but somehow larger than life, too.

Mr. Blatt and his family ended up at Sobibor, not far from their hometown village, or shtetl. Sobibor, in eastern Poland, was not a concentration camp like Auschwitz or Dachau. Sobibor was a death camp. Most of the Jews that were taken to Sobibor, including Mr. Blatt’s family, were immediately gassed after disembarking. Mr. Blatt survived because he was chosen to be a shoeshine boy for the Nazi guards.

In October of 1943, the Jews at Sobibor carried out an aggressive plan inspired by news of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. They killed the Nazi officers of the camp in order to escape into the woods. Mr. Blatt, age fifteen at the time, delivered false messages to lure some of the officers into situations where they were ambushed and killed. Half of the Jews - more than three hundred - were killed in the attempt, and while the remainder escaped, less than fifty ultimately survived the winter and the last eighteen months of the war. Mr. Blatt is one of six Sobibor escapees still alive today. The successful escape was so embarrassing to the Nazis that within days, Sobibor was closed, razed, and a forest of trees was planted in its place.

I was honored to witness Mr. Blatt’s story, and while I think my daughter struggled to understand this old man and his strong Yiddish accent, she was pleased that she went. This spring, she had studied the life of Eleanor Roosevelt for a living history project. And by listening to Mr. Blatt, my daughter was witnessing the story of someone whose life experiences had led to what Mrs. Roosevelt called her “most important accomplishment:” the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. My daughter was able to hear Mr. Blatt’s story straight from his mouth and to have history come alive for her through his experiences.

And so here’s to the power of our own personal histories. And here’s to the continuity of history and the power of connecting the dots between historical events and across generations. And, most especially, here’s to the strength, resilience and endurance of the human spirit.

Inadequate

On what might have been your tenth birthday
I hear you plead beg whine
Can I please get my ears pierced please?
you promise swear
I’ll clean them twice a day with a q-tip dipped in alcohol
Reluctantly I drive you to the mall
your soft earlobes are marked with a purple dot: the target
you squeeze my hand
you squeeze your blue eyes tight
under the fluorescent glare
The gun fires once, then again
Your ears redden at the violation
by gold studs with tiny pearls
your birthstone

Later I imagine
we suck milkshakes and
you hold the cool cup to the throbbing heat in your lobes
and I smile faintly at the woman you might have become

A decade
and still the memory of my womb aches
with sorrow and something like shame
I remember
that I wore khaki slacks, a green shirt,
and it was December
the hum of fluorescent lights
reflections on the grainy ultrasound screen
when I learned my body betrayed us
became a tomb for you
my heart pierced
intrauterine fetal demise
the inadequate explanation with an apologetic squeeze
But still I miss you
and yes, oh yes, sweetheart,
I know how old you are

Horseland

She writes the name of her horse, Florida, on a piece of shingle she found in the wood pile. Then she asks if I can hang the shingle and she shows me two roofing nails she uncovered in the backyard. I retrieve the hammer and follow her to her stable, Horseland.
Horseland is better known as Juniper Park. It stands at the far west end of our driveway. Four behemoth juniper trees anchor four corners and shade an area large enough and open enough to park a car. Branches layered to the ground conceal this haven where, long ago, we placed a sandbox that’s seen little use lately. North of the sandbox, a pile of long yellow grasses awaits Florida. I’d noticed Arden pulling up the grass an hour earlier, after she’d asked if we had any hay. I’d pointed at the yellow grasses bending in the wind on the hillside below the driveway.
She touches a branch that stretches out over the grass. That’s where she wants Florida’s nameplate to hang. Rake and shovel are propped against the trunk of one of the trees, ready to muck out the stable.
A moment later, the shingle hung, she beams.
“Mom, do we have any oats?”
By the end of the week, there are nine more nameplates: Fire, Sage, Rapunzel, Star, Sunflower, Tropical, Jewel, Flora, and Bluebell. As she decides the location of each stall in her stable, she weighs which horse will fit in the space allotted as well as each individual horse’s personality. Fire needs to be separate, as he can be a bit unpredictable – after all, he is part dragon and can breathe fire. Star is tiny and fits under the low branches defining her stall. I stifle a laugh as Arden sighs and mutters, “I guess I can pretend that Bluebell will fit there,” in a tangle of branches that is that only remaining unoccupied space.

I love that my work schedule and my daughters’ school schedule coincide and that we get more than two months together every summer. Two months to do a lot of nothing if we choose. When I chose teaching as my career, I never really considered the riches it would offer me as a parent. We have the luxury of time, which means that I get to sit in the shade of Juniper Park sharing lemonade with my daughters after spending the morning clearing low branches and nailing nameplates. I get to do this without my brain telling me I should be doing something more productive – and I realize the irony, for what could be more productive than encouraging imagination?
The obsession with horses began a while ago, coinciding with the waning of the obsession with unicorns. While Dan and I were in Maui a few weeks ago, the girls stayed with their grandparents. Grandma took them for walks each evening, carrots in hand to feed the neighborhood horses. And so Arden is now determined to own her very own horse. I don’t dare tell her that her chances of having her own horse right now are about as slim as her having her own unicorn.

When I was a child, my family spent a lot of time on the Crown C Ranch in southern Arizona, where we visited people we loved as family and rode horses. We also learned high etiquette for the dinner table (Encarna, the servant, will always serve you from the right – don’t serve yourself while she’s attending to your brother), some of it the hard way (don’t swing your still-too-short legs at the table, or Lhasa, the dog, will bite your toes). It was a magical place to be a child, and we were allowed to roam freely and explore. I shared a cozy, four-poster feather bed with my sister, and read The Wizard of Oz in bed below the light that was attached to the headboard.
But most of my memories there involve a fort my siblings and I created in a dry creek bed in front of the huge ranch house. While I don’t really recall the games we played in the fort, I do remember collecting acorns from the massive oaks that shaded our fort and separating their beret-like caps from the nuts. I remember my brothers kicking me and my sister out of the fort from time to time because we were girls. And I remember when the runoff from a huge thunderstorm raced down the wash and completely cleared away our fort and the toys we’d stashed and buried there.

I have a lot of childhood memories of unstructured time to play, to read, to imagine. I stopped reading only once in my life – after graduating with a degree in English literature I was too burned out to find any pleasure in it. I’d been reading three or four novels a week for my classes – and intensely, mind you, but after a six months hiatus, I began devouring books again. And at some point I stopped playing, thinking I was too cool for childish games. Somewhere, I fear I stopped using my imagination. Or did I?

Independence Day

you sit on my lap
in a lawn chair that creaks slightly
your long brown hair lifts
with the breeze
tickling my cheek

the last light extinguished
you whisper to me
I’m scared
Why? I ask
you shake your head
it’s not really fear
perhaps anticipation
this unsettling
that you can’t name

then
sparkling tentacles of light
redgreenstarkwhite
bluegoldpurple
punctuate the darkness
streak toward us
the crowd gasps
as tracers burn the sky

boom ricochet boom

under our blanket
an echo to that thunder
your heart thumps
and I recall first hearing it
in a sterile room
seven years ago

again you turn and whisper
I’m scared
a little tighter I hold you
I smooth your hair

you curl
burrowing into me
and we breathe together
as veins of light pinprick the dusk

I inhale your dependence
the sweet scent to be carried away
on the breeze so soon

Sweet Returns

Madeleine sleeps quietly now, nearly buried under a down comforter on the couch. I tiptoe through the house, trying to stay quiet and allow her the sleep she deeply needs now to recover from her fever. She’s such a good patient, a patient patient. She rarely asks for anything when she’s sick. I have to remind myself to offer her water, snacks, otter pops, a book, another blanket. Otherwise she’ll quietly suffer, keeping to herself.

It’s not easy for me to sit still with her while she’s sick. I’ve got my gram’s jump-up-and-do-one-more-thing-before-I-sit-down genes. The to-do list in my head adds to itself while I sit, frustrated, and I don’t get to cross anything off of it. The plants need watering, the laundry in the dryer is just about done, and I should really take out the recycling and empty the compost bin. And then I should put a few toys away and straighten up the kitchen counter where everything without a home seems to land. And look at that dust! I just don’t feel useful if I’m not crossing things off that list.
But it’s a blessing, too, when I have to slow down. If Madeleine hadn’t gotten sick yesterday, I would be working today. It’s nice to have a quiet day at home with her even if she is sick, and it was nice to have the opportunity to take Arden to the bus stop this morning. There is a feeling I get, I’m not quite sure how to describe it, but it’s something like pride mixed with wistfulness that envelops me when I see my daughters take that big, giant step up onto the school bus.
Arden, at six, is independent enough to navigate this mode of transportation on her own, to know which bus to board, to remember at which stop she should step off. She looks so small, there, next to that big yellow bus. And yet she looks so big too.
And I wonder if this wistful pride is what I will feel when my daughters board an airplane without me, or drive off for the evening in a car filled with friends, or turn away from me as they embrace many milestones that lie ahead. Places that I cannot go to with them, for if I did, it would defeat the very purpose of their going.
Madeleine turned ten this spring, and that number astounds me. Eight more summers remain until she takes that very big step towards college and true independence. She has less time left as a child than she has spent so far on this earth. Just ten quick years ago, she was dependent on me and her dad for everything. And somehow, and oh, so soon, she has learned so many things, and can do so much for herself. And this certainly is the goal: independence.
I am learning to let go, and learning to let her be, and let her do. But it’s not always easy, because it often seems that when she wants independence, I want her dependent because I can see a better way than the route she’s choosing. And when she wants dependence, I wish she would stand on her own. This balancing act, this push and pull, this tightrope walk that is parenting. How do we negotiate these acts? How do we know when to say when? When to trust and when to protect?
My sister-in-law has been in the midst of potty-training her son these past few months. Another of my sisters-in-law delivered her son to a university campus on the far coast this past fall. At times I feel so far from either of these two milestones – like I can barely remember the former and can’t imagine the latter. But I know the clock is ticking, and that our time together, like this, is limited.
And so, after she awoke from her nap sweaty from the fever breaking, I agreed to give her a bath instead of sending her off to the shower. And I wondered how long it has it been since I’ve bathed her? Since I’ve rinsed the shampoo from her hair? This intimate, stolen day that we spent together, just the two of us. How many more days do I get to spend with her before she’d rather be with friends? Or with boys?
It seems that children are always in the process of separating from the parents, and that initial closeness isn’t ever truly regained. After they’re born, nothing feels quite as close as those kicks and nudges from within. And after they’ve weaned, there’s no other closeness quite like that skin-on-skin contact. Yet, there is such a sweetness in the return, in holding hands as we walk together, snuggling on the couch, the smile and hug after school. And I can imagine the sweetness in a peck on the cheek as she leaves to go out with her friends or the joy when she visits home from college. The letting go isn’t always easy, but I can always anticipate the sweet returns.

Carnitas Kid

She sits across from me in the Mexican taco shop, eyes full of anticipation for the meal she believes herself brave enough to try. Our number, yelled from behind the counter, prompts her father to retrieve our order: fish tacos for me, carne asada torta for him, a bean and cheese burrito for the younger sister, and a carnitas taco for her. One glance at the taco, and she knows, and I know, that she won’t eat it. Two corn tortillas sit, covered with shredded carnitas, that much she expected. It’s the slather of guacamole topped with pico de gallo that causes her eyes to brim with tears.
I understand this, this mixing of food groups and expectations. And inside myself I feel the same fear of the unknown, the same this-is-not-what-I-bargained-for despair rising, her eyes pleading with me, “please, please, please don’t make me eat this.” At one time, for me too, the food groups were sacred, meant not to be mixed. How many meals I picked at, not wanting to soil my tongue with disparate flavors and textures at once.
For me, the hardest part of parenting is seeing my own weaknesses, my own struggles, my own failures bloom again inside my children. I thought I’d conquered these! And yet, here they are, facing me full on, and not only do I have to shoulder them again for myself, but I have to find the courage to muster her strength, so that she can bear them herself. Tears now slide over the dam.
I’ll be honest. She and I don’t always get along. It’s hard to see those traits that I don’t particularly like in myself manifest in my children. It’s especially difficult when I’ve tried hard to mask them, to grow beyond them, to bury them deep. The traits, that is. Not the children.
Insecurity, lack of confidence, a wish to become invisible at times so I wouldn’t be noticed, an inability to speak up, struggles with grasping mathematical concepts, difficulty making and keeping friends… these are all things I tried to jettison from my own life. Yet they surface again and again in my own life. And these unsinkable buoys are now tethered to her and don’t allow her to swim freely and hold her to the dark waters that can be adolescence.
I see now that these dark waters pepper the length of our lives, and it is possible to navigate through them, beyond them. But when she’s in the midst of them, my maternal advice rings hollow.

A few days later, the car bumps, jolts, picks its way deliberately over a 4WD jeep road up to the Calcite Mine in Anza-Borrego State Park. From my vantage in the front seat, I am nervous but not scared. My dad took my over dozens of roads like this one, or worse, throughout my childhood. I do not see her in the back-back seat, alone, clutching her stuffed panda, eyes alternating between bugging out and squenched shut.
When we arrive at a wide spot in the road, we decide to park and hike the rest of the way to the mine. When we get there, I notice she’s in tears and terrified of the drive back. I offer to walk the road with her while the rest of the group surveys the mine.
We head back toward the main road, walking at a good clip and holding hands. Words bubble forth from her, this taciturn-at-times, only-a-week-shy-of-being-a-ten-year-old girl. I’ve felt that she’s usually only taciturn with me, and this pains me too. But then I recognize that it’s not me, it’s my own insecurity buoy popping up, and sometimes she just doesn’t feel like talking.
We walk on, stopping only to look at the distance we’ve covered since leaving the car, and once to inspect up close the flame-red buds on an ocotillo whose arm waves right at eye-level. We’ve gone a fair way (the road in was a long 1.7 miles) when we notice the car is turning around. It’s at this point that she really starts to haul. She really doesn’t want to get back in that car, not on this road. And I don’t want to either, because at this point, if feels more like I’m walking with a friend than a daughter. The conversation flows easily, especially from her, and I like hearing her talk and express herself. And she keeps grabbing my hand.
Finally, the car catches up to us, but by this point, we’re only about a quarter of a mile from the main road. We climb in, welcoming the air conditioning and the shade.

Afterward, we visit Los Jilbertos again, but this time when she orders the carnitas taco, she remembers to ask for it plain, and she eats it all with a smile on her face. And late that afternoon as she bobs up and down in the pool, the sunlight and water amplify the happiness that glows from her tan face, my carnitas kid.